Stress has to be one of the most over used words of this century. Everyone’s stressed. You’re a total loser if you haven’t done xyz by a certain age. It’s like we were born into this plan that other people think we should follow. Whatever happened to living? Playing? Learning?

Whenever I talk to my gran she is asking me if I have “met someone.” She thinks I’m way to old to be single. Whenever I talk to my dad he asks me when I’m going to settle down. Whenever I talk to my sister she reminds me she wants to become an aunt. I personally do not feel like doing any one of these things right now. Well, hang out with the love of my life would be nice, but the rest, no. If I only live once, I’d like to explore life. I’d like to know I am making the most of every second here and right now for me that’s not having babies. Yes, I’ve reached an age where I want to have kids no later than five to seven years from now and I want to take that into account (i.e. maybe it’s a good idea not to spend the next five years partying, shagging every guy I see and wasting all my cash), but to stress about it? Or to think I have to do it now because other people think so? No. If I live for other peoples’ wishes or I get stressed, I’m not really living. I wanna be on an adventure, not a charter trip planned by someone else where I have live within their plans.

The same goes for career: you have to take certain things into account. If you want to be a millionaire by 35 (or whatever), it’s a good idea to nail a stable job if your own projects don’t take off (and just keep doing them on your spare time if you wish), whilst wisely investing as much as you can of the money you make. However, if the millions don’t come your way, no matter how hard you work, what are you going to do about it? Kill yourself? I say it again: we may only have one life – what are the things you want to occupy your mind and days with? (Not to mention nights…)

I have met people who are never satisfied. I used to be one of them. Then one day it dawned on me that all I have is this moment and I want to make the most of that and embrace whatever is in it – be that sorrow, or joy. I truly want to explore it. Learn from it. Then, suddenly, the fear disappears. The have to:s and musts disappear. I don’t have to be a certain person, or achieve a certain thing, I’m just exploring…making the most of things…learning. Doesn’t remove my goals, but it removes my stress to reach them.

I’ve said this before, but here we go again: I don’t know if there is a law of attraction – maybe I’m in charge of my life, maybe I’m not. Common sense tells me that you will only find what you are looking for – the rest will pass you by (and yes, this idea is supported by psychological experiments I’ve heard of). Common sense also tells me that the more you meditate on something, the more your mind is opened up to it and the more you educate yourself on a topic, the more likely you are to understand it. However, I’m not sure if we are in charge of what we are looking for, or if it is our pasts that determine this. Some people really seem to want certain things, but they don’t happen. Is that because they don’t really evaluate their lives and learn from their mistakes? Is that because they are not prepared to go through what it takes to learn? Or is it because they are blinded by their own thoughts and simply can’t find a way out? Sometimes you listen to people and they are like “I dated this person and then this person and they were bad for me because…now I’m dating this person who seems to be like that also, but I will still date them.” Hello??!! What I’m trying to say: do we have free will? Can we become whatever we choose if we are prepared to walk the path that leads us there? Can we even come up with a good idea of where we want to go unless we got inspiration for this in our childhood? Do people fuck up their lives because they are lazy, or because they don’t know how to live any other way? Will there always come a day when we realize we have a choice of how to live? Do we have a choice of how to live? I don’t know. By the end of the day: whatever happens happens and in my opinion the best you can do is to fully live it. Learn from it. Enjoy it. Stress about it? Isn’t this supposed to be the age of spirituality and…uhh…yoga and martial arts (with hot dudes)?

Why is all this so important to me? I used to want to be super woman. I wanted to be the best at everything. My self-confidence was rock bottom – I was never, ever pleased. I never believed people who praised me, because I was well aware I was not flawless. I didn’t love myself, nor did I understand how others could. Anything that did not go my way I beat myself up – whether I did not show up as I wanted to, or I didn’t nail a certain thing work wise. I worked like a maniac to become the person I wanted to be, achieving the things I wanted to achieve. The sad thing was – I wasn’t having fun – I was a perfectionist obsessed by my own imperfection. Then one day I gave up. I realized I knew nothing. I may never amount to anything. I do have life though and I want to live it. Embrace whatever this is. That somehow gave me more self-confidence than I’ve ever had before. Peoples’ opinions didn’t matter that much anymore. I no longer had to pretend. I just showed up.

3 responses to “Are you single??…”

“What, concretely, is Enlightenment?”
“Seeing Reality as it is,” said the Master.
“Doesn’t everyone see Reality as it is?”
“Oh, no! Most people see it as they think it is.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference between thinking you are drowning in a stormy sea and knowing you cannot drown because there isn’t any water in sight for miles around.”